What’s Going on with Republicans?

Recently I was listening to Fresh Air’s interview with David Weigel. The occasion was a book he had written about how the Republicans are shifting what their party is about. Frankly, I’m a bit concerned. The party seems to be less and less about small government and big business and more and more about courting religious fanatics. Seriously, a lot of these people sound just as bad as the Mullahs in Iran. There’s nothing wrong, of course, with courting religious voters. For some people they don’t care if their government is going to have financial policies that will harm them as long as they try to make abortion illegal again. But religious fanaticism is wrong whether it’s Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Sikh, or any other religion.

There were two things that really worried me about the direction the Republicans are taking and what it says about the consequences of them reaching office. First of all, the contingent that believes the Constitution was both perfect and divinely inspired. Of course we have to ignore the irony that it was OK for The Bush administration to wipe its butt with the constitution. Of course, when those ay-rabs are involved, it’s OK to violate the constitution. But forget about that. The first chink in their argument is the fact that the framers of the Constitution saw fit to allow for amendments. This simple fact shows their wisdom in knowing that situations change and the constitution should be malleable. If the Constitution were perfect or divinely inspired it wouldn’t need amendments. God, being omnipotent, would have included all that needed to be included. But that’s not the only reason it’s worrying that the Right seems to think the Constitution is perfect.

Let’s see what the original constitution said. Oh, right – that African-Americans were 3/5 of a person. Yeah… way to be perfect and awesome there, Framers of the Constitution. Sorry, but I don’t think God views any people as less than anyone else, so it’s not divinely inspired. Unless you’re admitting that either God made a mistake or humans corrupted it. But if God made a mistake there, then you could say he made a mistake anywhere. And if humans could corrupt that part, could they not corrupt any part of the document? But that’s not all. The original constitution did not allow for women to vote. African-American’s couldn’t vote. Is this what you really believe in? Do you really want to represent racist and misogynist people? Basically, I don’t put up with the BS that they do on the news where they usually don’t call out their guests when they don’t make sense. If the Constitution is perfect and divinely inspired, then that means you believe in racism and restricting the rights of women. And if you don’t believe that, then it cannot be divinely inspired and perfect. Find a new argument to make.

But what really scared me about listening to this people was a speech made by Sen. Tom Coburn’s chief of staff Michael Schwartz at the 2009 Values Voters Summit. In this speech, he said that an ex-gay friend of his told him that “All pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards.” WTF?!? This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. How does this even make sense? Like you’re sitting (lying?) there, messing with your junk and think, “Shoot. This is so awesome. How much more awesome would it be if I was doing another dude?” This is so ridiculous I’m surprised they didn’t laugh him right off the stage. Not to mention that if you’re looking at heterosexual porn, you’re looking at a person of the opposite sex, so how in the world could that make you gay? Does that mean that every guy who lusts over Megan Fox is turning a little gay? If he would have said, “We should work to stop pornography because it leads to people having an incorrect image of what sex is.” or “We should stop pornography because it leads to (rape/infidelity/etc)” then I would have totally respected his speech. I don’t know if any of those things happen to be true, but they are reasonable. I happen to know people of both sexes who thoroughly enjoy pornography (I, myself am not a fan) and they are not in the least bit gay. They enjoy heterosexual sex like crazy.

If these are the people that the Republicans are listening to, they’re really risking turning into a party of loonies. What people really need is to come back to sanity. How about Christian movements such as caring for the poor. In fact, what doesn’t make sense to me is Christian disapproval of universal healthcare. Hello! Jesus said to care for the weak and poor! Caring for them doesn’t involve denying them healthcare because they can’t afford it. That sounds pretty amoral to me. What about the Christian movement caring for the environment? Lots of people point to the Eden story derisively because people use Man’s dominion over animals as an excuse to do with animals as they wish. What they forget is that God basically has Adam tend to the plants and become the world’s first gardener. If you really believe that God gave us this planet, then should we not be taking care of it? When someone gives me a gift, I don’t just throw it away. This is why I don’t understand why a) religious people ally with the Republicans to the detriment of all that Christ asked us to do and b) they ally with these fanatics that are as bad as Al Qaeda. Any real Christian should look at the real issues instead of the bogeymen of abortion and gay rights. Work with women to help them decide to keep their babies. And stop worrying about gays. Worry about poor and hungry people. Worry about the environment. Worry about countries that don’t allow their citizens to join churches. Come back to sanity.